Patience is starting to pay off for Karoola-based trainer Dick Eaves with his efforts of four-year-old gelding Art Huntsman, who will be in search of back-to-back wins in Launceston on Friday night.
Prior to gracing the race track, Eaves believed he had a horse that was going to be as good as his former star pacer Barynya, who won multiple feature races, including the Group 1 Victorian Oaks and the George Johnson before finishing her racing career in North America, and subsequently went to the breeding barn where she has a two-year-old filly by Roll With Joe called M’ada Star who is yet to race.
Art Huntsman has yet to reach the heights of Barynya but indicated he is starting to progress the right way after a dominant 19.9m win in 1:57.4s last Sunday in Launceston.
“He got out in front where he could rock and roll, and I think that suited him. He ran every quarter under 30 seconds; I suppose that’s good in anyone’s language, and he finished off good too.” Eaves said about the win over 1680m.
“I thought early days when he was a yearling he was going to be as good as Barynya, but he got a really bad back and sacroiliac joint as a late two-year-old and early three-year-old, so he virtually missed 12 months, and I took him to Melbourne and got him treated, and they got him pretty good, and he has stayed pretty good this time in after having three-months off,” explained Eaves.
“The few runs have got him fit now. It has been a hard job getting him fit as he is a gross doing bloke, and if you have no horses to work with and are on your own all the time, it is hard to get him fit, so I have had to go to the races a little bit before time and try and get some racing into him, and he has improved every time he has gone out.
“He pulled up great (from Sunday), when he came off the track he looked great and was as fresh as a daisy,” said the trainer.
Brodie Davis has been in the sulky for the pacer’s last four starts and will be in the sulky again on Friday. They have drawn the pole in the night’s final race for horses with a national rating between 55 and 59 over 2200m.
“Barrier one can be a trick. If one begins a hundred mile an hour you can end up behind them with no where to go. But he has got good gate speed so he should be able to hold up I reckon,” Eaves said.
All horses trained at the meeting by Robert Walters were scratched on Thursday afternoon, a statement from Tasracing CEO Andrew Jenkins on the situation is available here.
